>>55289843Well that's not how it works.
When I'm facing you, I probably won't even look at your elo. It doesn't matter if I do, because you could be a noob or a smurf---your elo only really tells me how many points I stand to lose.
I know nothing about how you structured your team. I know nothing about your knowledge of plays. Pokemon is fraught with guesswork and if I make even one wrong call, which could be because of lack of knowledge about your team on my part, lack of knowledge on your part about what you *should* do / have done in a certain situation, or you *knowing* what I know you know -type situation that's effectively a 50/50, I can lose the entire match.
I'll give you an example. Last night, my opponent at the high 1200s (while my account is at ~1500) had my Milotic at 20% against his incoming Charizard. This Charizard just so happened to be a threat to much of my team, and if I lose my Milotic, things aren't looking good for me. I have a Blissey to switch to, in case he should HP Grass, but everyone including myself knows Charizard runs SubPunch.
So he forced me into a 50/50 where if I switch, he could nail my Blissey with a Focus Punch, but if I stay in, I could kill it with Surf. He ended up doing exactly that and I fainted it; he went on to lose the match.
Not only is Pokemon dictated by RNG---it's also dictated by blatant guessing---which is, effectively, antithetical to skill expression.
So yeah, it's entirely easy for me or any other vet to be on the opposite side here and getting screwed over because of overestimating/underestimating/miscalculating the competence and wit of the opponent---but the only way you can properly respond is if you're a mindreader. There's no other way to be consistent in this game except by just being lucky.
